Retrospective examines Rodrigue’s life, career

Jacques Rodrigue, son of famed artist George Rodrigue, explains the various pieces on display at the Memorial Retrospective Exhibit which will open in Lafayette on January 23, 2014. George Rodrigue, an Acadiana-based artist best known for his Blue Dog paintings, died on Dec. 14, 2013. By January 22, 2014(Photo: Paul Kieu, The Advertiser)Buy Photo

The Lafayette Rodrigue studio will re-open today with a survey of George Rodrigue’s work curated by the artist’s family and New Orleans Museum of Art Director Emeritus E. John Bullard.

The world-renowned painter, known for his Blue Dog series and his depictions of Cajun people and landscapes, died in December after a long battle with cancer.

Now, his family will share a retrospective of his work with the public, as they say Rodrigue would have wanted.

“Even before he got sick we talked about what we would have to do,” his son Jacques Rodrigue said. “We are carrying out his wishes and doing what he wanted us to do. So the public can understand how important the Lafayette area was to his beginnings as an artist.”

Along with the iconic Blue Dogs and works from the “Cajuns” series, the exhibit will include works spanning Rodrigue’s illustrious career and life. The Rodrigue family and Bullard have curated a collection of experimental art school works, early landscapes and personal memorabilia from the painter’s home and studio.

Visitors will also learn more about the man and how he became a success in the art world despite often going against convention.

“From the start of his career, George Rodigue bypassed the traditional art establishment, going directly to the public to present his art,” said Bullard. “As his popularity grew, the art elite seemed suspicious, questioning how anything so popular could have serious value. In the past decade, after many museum exhibitions and critical articles and books, that attitude has changed.”

“Dad always said that if he was not from the Acadiana area that he probably would have never been an artist,” Jacques Rodrigue said. “It was the Cajun culture and our heritage that inspired him to paint.”

Visitors will see one of the first two paintings Rodrigue ever sold. It is a Louisiana landscape that is dark, but familiar, with massive oak trees as a focal point.

“He sold the pair for $25 a piece,” Jacques Rodrigue recalled. “He always said he knew if he could sell four or five paintings a month, that he could live and he could be a professional artist.”

Also on display are the early loup garous, or Cajun werewolf dog, which became known as the “Blue Dog” and catapulted Rodrigue into the popular art stratosphere.

“It was actually the public that called these loup garous the Blue Dog,” Jacques Rodrigue said. “And that’s when his whole mind changed that this series could be more than about just a loup garou. It could be about a way to comment on life today using these graphic shapes and strong imagery.”

Despite his enormous success, the New Iberia native remained genuine and true to his Cajun roots. He was an advocate for arts education through his foundation, the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts.

Abstract painter Mallory Page Chastant, Jacques Rodrigue’s fiancee, said Rodrigue was always there to offer advice if she needed it.

“He was a mentor to me. A future father-in-law,” Chastant said. “He was undeniably someone who would reach out to other artists. I learned a lot. More than I could even begin to relate.”

When in Lafayette, Rodrigue was one of the guys — a neighbor, a friend, a father — even though he was sought out by national media and was the subject of numerous books.

“It’s easy to say he was a marketer or a self-promoter, but it’s hard to deny a body of work that exists based on principles he learned in art school,” Jacques Rodrigue added. “This was one guy who lived this larger-than-life life and did so much. But he is one of our own and is a part of this culture and who we are as people.”

Jacques Rodrigue said he thinks about his father every day. It has been just over a month since Rodrigue’s passing, but already he misses his presence.

“Every day it’s tough,” he said. “You know, I still talk to him. I still know if I ask a question, I know what the answer would be, what he would say. So, I’m happy for that.”